Problem with Slugish Start, please read

[har2catch]

Hi, I would like to take the time to explain on what is wrong with my car. It all started with the water pump leaking, in the begging on the week. I thought i could drive the car to the end of the week and fix the problem in the weekend. well Wrong. on friday after work driving home in Traffic that runs 15-20 mph in LA, I see my temp on the engne just rockets up, I get off the fwy right away, pop my hood and there is no smoke or anything unusual so I decide to keep driving, into 15-20 minutes of driving the temp goes back up one line before the H. I get off, but on a red light I see smoke coming underneath my car so I decide to pull over on when I do. I step on the gas and my car starts sluggish and the RPM slowly starts to pick up speed until it hits 3000rpm and then it starts to get its steantgh back(it sounded like when you starts a old car and it need gas like if the engine is going to turn off ) but also I heard my exhust poping, so I pull over and open the hood. I see smoke coming from the headers area, I open my radiator cap and see no water,...it was dry. well fill it up back with 3 gallonns of water it was droping the water faster now so I drove home. weekend came and fix the water pump and replaced my thermostat. The slugish start and rpm starting slow it still there.

I need someones help on any ideas on what it could be or what got mest-up or thing I need to check on.

sorry for the long story, but I hope it helps, for you could get the picture.

Thank You.

[NISTECH]

Check your compression. Getting the car so hot may have damaged the head gasket or head. Also BTW the temp gauge becomes an inaccurate way of monitering your engine temp when the fluid level in the cooling system drops. This is because the sensor needs to be submerged in the fluid to determine the coolant temp. If it only gets spots of fluid on it it will give you a hot reading but that reading will be substantially lower then a realistic engine temp.